


Darling

by applecameron



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Anxiety, Canonical Character Death, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-25
Updated: 2016-04-25
Packaged: 2018-06-04 11:59:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6656935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/applecameron/pseuds/applecameron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"His nerves felt rubbed raw, and if something didn't break soon he was going to snap and kill someone topside, or start bawling, and he didn't know which prospect horrified him more."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Darling

**Author's Note:**

> I needed to write some angst, and this is what happened. I look at these tags and think they label the story as much darker than it is, but these things are present, so…there you have it.

The job involved a famous hotel heiress, was plagued by delays, and Arthur was sick of it all. Fucking hotels. If he never saw the inside of another hotel room for the rest of his life, he could die happy. This was not likely to happen. 

He used to like staying in hotels, before Mal. These days, and especially at this time of year, he'd rather sublet someone's apartment, stay in a hostel, or on the job site or something. Upside down hanging by his heels in a bat cave. Anything but a hotel. He wouldn't be on the job at this time of year, either, if he had a choice, except for delay after stupid shitty delay. Anything but work, and anything but a hotel. Especially in Paris. He kept seeing Mal's face, just glimpses, in his peripheral vision. He could feel a weight, sitting hard and heavy, in his chest. 

His nerves felt rubbed raw, and if something didn't break soon he was going to snap and kill someone topside, or start bawling, and he didn't know which prospect horrified him more. 

Eames wasn't making the situation any easier, with his mocking little "darlings" and "pets" and whatever other endearment dripped from his lips each day. With his easy warmth and charm and imperturbability. For an idle moment, Arthur hated him. God, it was so late and he was so tired, and those bank statements weren't going to read themselves. He really needed to write a program that would, take the time to streamline this step for himself. It would be nice to glance at stats instead of reviewing them manually. 

He drifted for a bit, contemplating the time it would take and letting a few design elements bubble up to his awareness. The issue was really formatting differences across banks after statements have been generated, if he wrote an API for accessing a bank's database, then he wouldn't have to rely on OCR and scanning to produce a dataset. He'd have the bank's. Turns the problem into a little hacking and reverse-engineering some Oracle databases. Not a cakewalk to be sure, but not insurmountable either. Maybe after this job. It would be nice. The right hacker had probably already tackled the problem. Arthur should make a point of catching up with a few people in that community, blow the rust off his skills, make it happen. 

He drifted some more, wondering if his subconscious would offer any more solutions to long-standing annoyances. 

He realized he was more than half-asleep when he came awake to Eames tugging his shoulder and telling him to get up and go to bed. Stupid. 

"You wake me up to tell me to sleep?" Arthur slurred against his hands, pillowing his face on the desk. "Stupid." He wanted to ask what time it was, but was too tired. 

"Yes, I know, darling." Imperturbable fucker. "At least come over here and lay down. You'll sleep better." Then he was up and being steered somewhere. 

"Not your darling." He muttered as Eames straightened his legs out on the cot and pulled off his shoes. "Not anyone's darling." 

"You could be, anytime you wanted." A hand ghosted along his cheek, then a blanket was patted into place over him. 

No, he couldn't. Not Arthur. That was never for him. That was one of the first lessons he learned in this life, long before Mal jumped. "Lies." Arthur said. Or maybe he just thought it. And then, just like that, he was asleep again. 

* * *

Eames was forging the mark's first husband, her grand passion, apparently. It was a tale of love lost that frankly, Arthur really didn't want to hear. It just made the weight sitting on his chest heavier. Someone else losing the thing that made their life bearable - or worse, joyous - and being stuck alive themselves after. 

He was shaving, face visible in the wiped-clean space on the mirror in his hotel bath, when that somewhat poetic observation hit him. It also hit him that there were a multitude of sharp objects or other ways to make his own pain go away, if he just used them. 

Arthur put his razor down, and braced his hands on the counter to the sink. _None of that, now_. 

He said it aloud, for good measure, then resumed shaving. 

* * *

The job went like clockwork, but Arthur felt no better at all. Shit. 

Usually, there was a high of success he experienced right about now. Today, though, he just felt numb. Tired. A little angry at himself, maybe, for not feeling what he should, not being able to shift the thing that was sitting on him, pressing and pressing, and never letting up. 

He wound up just standing in his hotel room, compulsively re-ticking-off his last checklist for the job as if doing so again would somehow summon up the relief, the satisfaction, of a job well done. It was a job well done. He should be feeling satisfied, even happy. Tick-tick-tick. Records destroyed, models disassembled, final drop to client and pay logged and distributed, team exiting the area. All done. 

There's nothing left except to exit himself. Not like that. _None of that, now_. Right. Tick. 

He was still standing in his hotel room, staring at the checked-off list in his hand like it would somehow give him his life back, his happiness back, when Eames knocked. 

Arthur didn't answer, just turned to watch, moleskine in his hand, silent witness as Eames broke into the room, using a stolen master key card, or having talked someone into giving him a replacement, or whatever flawless little con he'd felt like applying, stepping just in as soon as he spotted Arthur standing not much more than an arm's length away, looking straight at him. 

"Hullo, darling." 

And Arthur found that he did, in fact, have the energy to say _don't call me darling_. So he did. 

It didn't even occur to him to ask why Eames hadn't left yet. The forger usually subscribed to the get-out-of-town-quickly school of thought common to dreamshare. Arthur, in his role as point, subscribed to the reverse as the natural consequence of the demands of his job. 

"Just," he looked down at his hands where they were closing his moleskine up and wrapping the elastic back into place to secure it, "stop calling me darling all the time." He really didn't know why he bothered saying anything. It's not like Eames listened to him as a rule, but, "It's like you're rubbing it in my face. Just stop, all right?" 

The predominant look on Eames' face was confusion, but there were a bunch of other emotions crowded across his features, Arthur couldn't even identify them all. He was too tired, or angry, or something like that. 

"What am I rubbing in your face, Arthur?" 

'I'm not your darling. That's never me. I don't - " His face felt wet and that was it, his body'd decided for him, it's bawling, not murder, after all, and he was horrified, his face hot; embarrassed, and angry and why wouldn't Eames quit, give up, just leave him alone, _why couldn't Arthur touch people like he did and not feel like it's fake, like he's fake_ , why couldn't he enjoy others, take pleasure in them? "I'm not anyone's darling. That's not me. I don't get that." 

His chest ached, like his heart really was breaking into pieces, actual pieces that would crack when they hit the floor, and Eames would have to sweep them up, chasing little bits of his heart out of corners with a broom. He wondered how big his heart was, how many pieces it would make. 

Eames crouched down by him, that's how Arthur realized his knees had given and he'd fallen to the floor. His body didn't want to breathe anymore, the weight on his chest had become neutronium, with no start or end, and it was like the worst of his loneliest days all compressed into one clamping squeeze and he was going to pass out, he was, he really was - 

"Arthur, please talk to me." 

There was a warm hand on his back, rubbing in circles, just like Mal would do to comfort Philippa, and he didn't know if he was speaking out loud or in his head. "R-regular people. _They_ get darlings." _Not me_. 

He wasn't cold, because Eames was holding him now, still rubbing circles on his back with one hand. 

"I just want Mal back." He whispered to Eames. "Can't I have her back? Just for a little while? Just for a minute?" All those touches she gave him. Made him feel like a thief, like he was stealing touches she should've saved for Dom, or the kids, but she spent them on him instead. He never had to wonder if she was going to hurt him, reject him. Mal made him feel loved, just a tiny bit. And then there was Eames, with his arm around Arthur, but that wouldn't last, Eames wouldn't just hang around, he flit in and out and was charming, and then gone. Arthur twisted but he was exhausted, with no leverage. No one had touched him in so long, since she died he'd measured his human contact in fleeting brushes at cafes and on public transit, the occasional pat on Dom's shoulder. He was afraid of it, now, afraid of what it would do to him, that the abyss inside him would suck in and destroy anyone who touched him now, it was so big, but he was too tired to fight about it anymore. To fight about anything anymore. He just wanted things to be over. Over, and done, and dead and gone. It would be a relief. 

"I wish you could, da- Arthur. I'm so sorry." 

They were like that for a long time, Eames holding him and making some kind of soothing noise at him, to go with his gentle touch. At some point, he nudged Arthur, "Can you get up with me? I want to sit us down on the sofa. Okay?" 

And that was how Arthur found himself on a hotel room sofa partly draped over Eames, soaking in the warmth of his body, eyes closed, drifting, as Eames reminded him to breathe, just breathe for me, Arthur. In and out. 

It was only when he woke that he realized he had fallen asleep. Eames' arm around his shoulders tightened when Arthur tried shifting away. "Sorry," he mumbled to Eames' chest, to his shoulder, the warm skin of his neck. 

"I didn't know, Arthur." 

"Know what?" 

"That you were Oliver Twist, looking in through glass at all the things someone taught you you couldn't have." 

"Oh." Arthur really had no idea what to say to that. And his eyes kept wanting to close. He felt strangely safe, in this moment. "I…try not to show it," he mumbled. 

"Mmm. You pass very well, then." 

Arthur had no idea what to say to that, either. 

He didn't know how much more time passed in silence. His senses felt dulled, like all of him got used up and he didn't understand how. 

Eames' arms tightened again. "This is what we're going to do." Arthur's heart lurched in fear. 

"I'm going to put both of us to bed because it's been a very long, upsetting day. When we wake up I'm going to make you come as many times as I can. I'm going to touch you and I'm not going to stop. And then I'm going to pack us both up to a little place around Mont-Ventoux and we will enjoy Provencal cuisine and lavender country until we decide to enjoy someplace else. Together. Does that sound good to you? Sufficiently specific?" 

"Uh….okay?" 

"You're the master planner." Eames' fingers reached for his jaw in a brief caress. "I defer to your expertise." 

"Oh." 

"I warn you I am prone to public displays of affection with my loved ones." 

That made Arthur smile, thinking of Provence, and what affection might feel like in the midst of lavender fields. Then he realized Eames said "loved ones", and his heart lurched again. "…oh?" 

"And I won't leave you unless you tell me to go." 

"Oh." Arthur thought about that for a while, whether he could trust Eames. Eames who figured out how to make inception work. Who went down three levels and tempted limbo, and returned to tell the tale. Eames with his clever fingers, and artist's eye. All the different Eames he'd known over the years. All of whom, it had to be said, had been solid, reliable, in a pinch, for all his gadfly persona. And this Eames right here, was not acting the gadfly at all, this Eames who wanted him, and said so, out loud. "Okay. Yeah, okay."


End file.
